More than 90 percent of foreign-born federal prison inmates are illegal immigrants
New Department of Justice data shows that more than 90 percent of foreign-born prisoners held in the U.S. are illegal immigrants.
The data shows that about 24 percent of the federal prison population are foreign born, 45,493. Of those, just 3,939 are U.S. citizens, and the remaining 41,554 are illegally in the United States.

Costs a lot, free room and board isnt free. Why not just send them back and have strong borders?

You can only have strong borders, if you have an immigration system that doesn’t resist socio-economic forces.

In the 1950s, we had an immigration system that went after exceptions such as criminals and the sick.

Today, we have a system that seeks to ban instead the average immigrant, with the net result being, not nearly enough legally enter to meet demand; incentivizing the creation of a black market in labor.

If a law puts itself on a collision course with a natural economic trend; especially one that had already been going on for more than half a century before the law itself was passed, it’s only asking to create dysfunction, and for the negative effects of immigration to maximize. Criminality being one of them.

LOL. The “average” immigrant is NOT here illegally, AS. I agree with President Trump that we should encourage immigration of those who will BENEFIT the U.S. rather than those who will likely become a burden on us, economically, socially and culturally. When you allow entry of even MORE of those who suck on the government teat, EVENTUALLY you get what we had that resulted in last year’s election…frustration with those who have little or no interest in protecting our sovereignty or national identity.

So why don’t we change our immigration system, to give other immigrant groups that same access?

What do you mean by “highly open access?” They were brought here–or allowed here–LEGALLY, with proper papers and all that implies. I worked for my church to help settle dozens of Vietnamese into housing in my home town back in the late 70’s. The church had previously acquired surplus Wainwright houses on a former military base and we put them there at OUR expense. A local businessman gave the adults jobs and we brought in cases of culturally-appropriate food to get them started. Within 4 months, these families were self-sufficient.

An interesting sidelight to that story. One extended family–Grandpa, Grandma, two boys, their wives and 6 children–settled in one of the duplexes. It was apparent that Grandpa was the family’s head. When the adults got their first paychecks, they all gave them to him and the FIRST thing he bought was a color TV. One of the churchmen asked why and Grandpa told him that it was the fastest way for the kids to learn English and he KNEW that success in American depended on English fluency!

They applied to come in, and we gave them a streamlined process to do so, without caring about anything other than if they were criminals or spies.

That’s the model to follow; all of immigration should be judged on that same basis. If we had that, we would have very little illegal immigration.

The government may well have believed that we OWED them entry for humanitarian reasons. They were, after all, fleeing communist takeovers of their country–especially so in the case of the Vietnamese and Hmong refugees. Even so, they assimilated rapidly and quickly became ASSETS to this country instead of economic and cultural BURDENS.

They applied to come in, and we gave them a streamlined process to do so, without caring about anything other than if they were criminals or spies.

That’s the model to follow; all of immigration should be judged on that same basis. If we had that, we would have very little illegal immigration.

The government may well have believed that we OWED them entry for humanitarian reasons. They were, after all, fleeing communist takeovers of their country–especially so in the case of the Vietnamese and Hmong refugees.

Because we didn’t impede their progress by forcing them to navigate onerous laws and Byzantine regulations.

We didn’t pretend that we knew who was “useful” and who wasn’t.

Even so, they assimilated rapidly

Yes Dave, despite coming from cultures stooped in Socialism.

How is it that people who’ve known nothing else but that, come here, and embrace capitalism?

How does that work Dave? Could be, that people are actually moral agents, who have their own reason, and can see that welfare is a bad deal?

Reason that can assert itself, when we don’t attack them as being useless?

Hispanics can be just like them, because Cubans are Hispanics. We just never bothered to give them the same chance.

You forget that the Vietnamese and the Cubans were FLEEING socialism to a place the believed was capitalist and would offer them opportunities for success. They were already predisposed towards capitalism or they’d have remained where they were, with “guaranteed incomes” under their communist overlords.

Mexico is NOT a socialist country. If it were, these fleeing to the U.S. would be receiving MEXICO government largesse as most socialist countries provide its citizens. It’s a kleptocracy in which ONLY the upper echelons get government “benefits.” Venezuelans and Argentinians are NOT flooding across our borders without permission. Mexicans are.

Facing economic and political crises, more and more Venezuelans are having to leave for other countries, even if it means extreme hardships. Raices Venezolanas, an initiative by a Miami organization, helps poor Venezuelan migrants.